Here is the first of two articles about recruiting top performing sales people and daring to do so from outside of your industry.

When it comes to assessing sales and sales leadership capabilities in your business do the lines blur between the cultural morays, views and perceptions, gossip and politics and the real capabilities needed to be assessed against your actual sales strategy?

In my line of work I am often requested to sit on senior management interview panels for clients because of my background and expertise in assessing sales leadership and sales performance and the issues around of internal and external assessment of sales people and leaders. They request my presence based on the following criteria:

• My 15 years working in the sales competency, assessment and development space
• My eight years as a recruitment consultant interviewing approximately 8,000 sales people and managers face-to-face.
• My independence as a 3rd party
• My willingness to speak up and challenge prevailing views and attitudes as I am not likely to carry the internal company prejudices and paradigms that influence current thinking and culture into the interviews.

Sales recruitment and assessment is not for the faint hearted and is one of the hardest areas to get right in any business, and it doesn’t help if politics, nepotism and inaccurate perceptions of what constitute effective sales and sales leadership performance prevail. I get to see this, especially when we are looking at internal candidates.

Just recently I was in shock at the extreme contrast between two internal candidates who were two of several internal candidates vying for sales leadership roles on a newly formed senior management team:

1. One sales leader was rated highly be their manager and endorsed by certain peers in high places but in interview it was clear they had no idea about sales leadership, strategy or process and no substance what so ever. They were a ‘fraud’ as far as the role was concerned. Yet their manager and other allies were clearly trying to position this person as a top performer which they clearly were not.
2. Next rolls up the complete opposite. Clearly a highly competent candidate. They had the complete package, it was obvious from our investigations and we were impressed yet they had been previously rated poorly on key criteria and the lobbying by certain internal stakeholders to deposition them was astounding. His comment, when asked how he felt about being invited to participate in the interview process, was very telling. He said ‘Relief. Relief at being actually able to present his capabilities honestly, clearly and fairly without bias or prejudice.”

My client, relatively new to this division and whom I shared the interview panel with, had very little direct dealings with any of the candidates which was good on one hand, however, most of his information about the candidates was coming second hand via comments and lobbying from peers and managers and performance data ratings which may or may not have been accurate depending on who had assessed the individuals. He wanted a transparent, evidenced based approach used which is why he called me in. And our approach unearthed a whole lot of issues and raised questions around:

• The formal performance assessment criteria and process of sales individuals (not just $ sales results)
• Those who were doing the assessment ratings on staff and what perceptual filters they are using in addition to the standards provided i.e. biases, prejudices, etc.
• The political lobbying in place to keep top performers from making it to influential positions
• The actual criteria used to assess effective sales performance and leadership. Is it up-to-date and able to deliver our sale strategy?
• The consequences of political, inwardly focused, biased culture and its effect on the organisation’s success in sales, staff performance and retention.

If the sales capabilities and performance requirements needed are properly assessed against sales strategy then what we can go looking outside of our comfort zone for top performers who can thrive and deliver I our culture. What is good for one industry may also be good for another.

I can honestly say for a fact that my best placements were people outside of the industries I recruited for. The clever sales managers recognised this and took a risk. So dare to be different.

Part 2 next week.

Ever misinterpreted or missed hearing important information which meant that you missed a vital opportunity? You’re not alone. Listening has always been, and still, one of life’s most vital skills. With so much competing for our time and attention I have found the effectiveness of mine and others’ listening skills are being increasingly challenged.

Where I notice my deficit in this area the most is when I go home after a busy day and my children want to tell me all about their day and I realise my head is still full of my work and other priorities and I am not really listening to them in the manner that I should and would like. I have made it my practice using my ‘To Do’ list to clear my mind, however, I realise that I still the need to focus on how effectively I really listen. I figured I probably wasn’t alone here hence this topic for your review.

So how well do you rate your listening skills? How accurately do you hear and interpret what others say to you? How easily are you able to break your own preoccupation with yourself and really tune into another person and what’s important to them?

Contrary to the popular myth “good sales people are good talkers”, excellent sales people are the better listeners and interpreters of other people’s information. They accurately record and reflect what the other person is saying to the point where the other person(s) feels heard, understood and respected.

I can’t stress the importance of effective listening to your success as a sales person, manager, leader, team member, parent, partner, friend or any other role you may have in your life. Listening is a vital life skill which serves you well in many situations and if not done properly you can miss many opportunities and annoy and lose people in the process.

However I find that people are often unaware that there different types of listening, not all of which are effective. If we are to truly practice effective listening we need to practice and apply Active Listening skills.

Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is the first part and consists of the perception of words being spoken. Listening, the second part, involves the attachment of meaning to what is being said. Passive Listening occurs when the listener has little motivation to listen carefully. Active Listening with a purpose is used to gain information, to determine how another person feels and to understand others. It requires effort on your part but the rewards are gratitude, respect and closer relationships.

Listening can be one of your most powerful communication tools!

So what are the Barriers to effective listening?

There are a number of things that can become barriers to effective listening and communication. People can build up barriers through personal insecurities or even through simple imbedding stemming from their cultural upbringing.

When it comes to listening, there are 3 levels of listening that we can exhibit.

Why not rate your current listening skills using the following checklist:

1. Marginal listening

• Minimal concentration and listening.
• Listener easily distracted by thoughts and fleeting impressions – leads to blank stares or inappropriate silences. This annoys the customer and causes communication barriers.
• Listener plays with the message but doesn’t really hear what is being said.
• Lots of room for misunderstanding
• Person/ Customer feels the person serving/working/ etc. with them is not listening
• This type of listening is sometimes due to lack of confidence – the person is focusing too hard on what they will say next.
• Or the old pro may feel they’ve heard it all before. They may want the person / customer to hurry up so they can get on with the important stuff.

2. Evaluative listening

• Second level of listening requires higher level of listening and concentration on person/ customer’s words.
• Actively trying to hear what the person/ customer is saying but you’re not making an effort to understand their intent.
• Instead of accepting and trying to understand the message, this listening evaluates and categorises the overall argument and concentrates on preparing a response.
• Often anticipates the listener’s words and is ready with a response as soon as person / customer is finished speaking.
• Most of your attention is on a response therefore you form an opinion about the person/ customer’s words before they are finished.
• Risk of not accurately understanding the message being sent.

3. Active listening

• Refrains from evaluating the person/ customer’s message and tries to see their point of view.
• Attention not only on words spoken but also on the thoughts, feelings of the person / customer.
• Requires a suspension of personal thoughts and feelings to give attention solely to listening.
• Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes
• Indicate to the person/ customer through verbal and nonverbal cues you are listening.
• Good use of verifying, clarifying and paraphrasing.

Another good tip when practicing active listening is to take notes and use them when you a paraphrasing what the other person has said. However, all too often, I see sales people not taking notes relying only on their memory. After several meetings, no matter how alert you are, relying on your memory when you have so many other things on your agenda is a risky practice I would rather not undertake.

Taking notes combined with active listening skills is a useful, yet simple strategy that serves you very well on all levels. As I said when done properly the person you are listening to feels heard, understood and respected.

One of the things that frustrate me the most as a customer is inconsistent service standards, inconsistent procedures and people’s inability to deal effectively and honourably with different types of people. If left unchecked this leads to confusion, frustration, wasted time, wasted effort, impaired brands and reputations, lost revenue and lost customers.

These issues don’t seem to be as much of an issue when you deal with very small companies because usually everyone knows what everyone else is doing and how it should be done even if it is only via word of mouth. However as businesses expand and get on board more people to work in the front line you, as the customer can’t always expect to get the same person to deal with then the challenges begin.

Here is a live example of what I mean.

I was trying to change a periodical payment amount over the phone recently normally a very simple task from my previous experiences. When I have called in the past I usually get put through to a regular group of 3-4 people who take care of our region. They have always been very helpful and pleasant to deal with. They know who I am and I enjoy speaking with them. I follow the appropriate security protocol they instructed me to use and more often than not our tasks are completed very quickly and promptly. This has been the case for over two years now. No fuss. No bother.

So when I tried to change a periodical payment to a new amount a few days ago it took three calls and 45 minutes to still get nowhere and when I tried again a few days later it took only one call and 2 minutes to rectify what I needed done in the manner I had always done it in before. What a waste! Wasted time, wasted resources, wasted relationships, etc.

Here is a summary of what happened and you’ll see what I mean:

• My 1st call was taken by a young man who was very abrupt to begin with and would not give me his name when I asked for it later on in the call. I admit he did give me his name when he answered the phone however he said it so fast that I didn’t hear it so when I asked him to give it me again he said ‘I have already told you my name and I don’t have to tell you again”. In short he refused to help me with my request and behaved in a belligerent manner. I then asked to speak to his supervisor and he said, “No I will not do that”. I was at an impasse so I hung up and tried again.
• My 2nd call was much more pleasant. I explained what happened with the last call and the woman (who sounded older) was very gracious and understanding however she was unable to help me with my immediate request as per my usual method as she claimed I needed to do it another way and had to get more information. So I hung up again and gathered the information needed to be prepared the next time I called. (It should be noted that I have not needed all this additional information in the past as they have it on file and I use the appropriate security information to process my tasks.) And sadly I was not able to call her back direct to carry on our discussions. I had to start back at the start with a new person all over again.
• The 3rd call is too long to go into so in summary after I explained what I wanted to do as per the previous two calls, I was spoken over, interrupted, told that staff were getting sacked over not doing things properly, “I don’t want to lose my job” and that the way I had been doing things in the past (i.e. ringing up and giving my account details and security passwords to process simple tasks) was no longer valid and that I had to fill in forms and fax them through, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. And in this person’s attempt to finally empathise with me and my frustrations they said “Yes I get nasty too when I am not happy”. I sighed again and explained that at no time had I behaved in a nasty manner. Sure I was frustrated but not nasty. She had to admit this was the case and apologised for inferring otherwise. She stated she would send me a PDF to fill and fax back. More wasted time, more frustration, more inconsistencies. I gave up and went back to try to enjoy my day off.
• The 4th call a few days later. I ditched the fax and did what I normally do and it was done in 2 minutes no fuss over the phone.

I have to say I was confused. I mean what is the right way to do things? The way calls 1 and 3 went were so far off the mark of effective service standards I wondered if I had walked into a comedy of errors and just a bad day at the office.

My expectations as a customer in this situation are not high at all as it was only a simple transaction that shouldn’t have taken much effort to process at all. All I expected was to receive the polite and helpful processing of my request. Calls 1 and 3 were handled so badly that they potentially ruined all the good work put in by their colleagues previously who knew better (consciously or not) how to treat customers well.

So who is to blame? I don’t know specifically in this case however I would talk to management and find out if the issue was an isolated incident or systemic. If it is systemic we need to identify the problem(s) and put in place a change process to resolve this as effectively and efficiently as possible.

So,

• What are your service standards?
• How do you educate and work effectively with your clients?
• How do you expect your staff to interact and behave with your clients?
• Does everyone know want is expected of them and how they should behave?
• Are you all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet”?

While it’s easier to strike up a relationship with one person only, having to deal with multiple service people about the same common issues or procedures needs a streamlined consistent approach in procedures and tools in how to work effectively with different people. Educating customers on the right ways to work with you is very important especially if you are not going to provide them with the same person to contact each time. Customers want consistency.

For instance at BARRETT every member of our team is aware of our standard policy for Psychometric Assessment procedures and that we guarantee a 24-hour turnaround for delivery of reports once the assessment has been completed. If a client gets its within 24 hours that is an exception not the norm. Everyone in our business knows this and makes it clear to our clients especially the new ones who begin to work with us. This reduces confusion and sets clear expectations.

So if we are going to make it better for everyone concerned, customers and staff alike, we need sales and service staff to:

1. handle a query simply and easily
2. know, understand and follow due process
3. explain things clearly
4. use plain language the customer can understand
5. clarify and solve people’s problems
6. help correct any misunderstanding politely
7. communicate in a positive professional manner
8. make people feel welcome
9. distinguish how customers really feel
10. adapt their communication style with different people
11. handle frustrations effectively
12. don’t take things personally

If they can’t do this, they potentially send your customers away unhappy and maybe unwilling to come back and this will ruin your reputation, your revenue and ultimately your business.

Several years ago I read a great book called ‘Kids Are Worth It – Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline’ by Barbara Coloroso.

This book has served me very well as a parent giving me guidance in how to raise self-aware and self-disciplined children. In particular, I learnt by heart the following questions which I ask myself whenever I make decisions and in turn, have taught my children to ask whenever they make decisions.

The 3 Decision Questions are:

• Is it life threatening?
• Is it morally threatening?
• Is it unhealthy?

For instance, when my then 7 year old son asked if his 2 year old brother could get up on the cubby house roof with him I suggested he ask himself the 3 Decision Questions. He did so and decided it wasn’t a good idea for his brother to get up on the cubby house roof after all, for all the right reasons you would come up with. The good thing was that I didn’t have to tell him what they were, he came up with the reasons by himself.

The aim of the 3 Decision Questions is to give children ownership and control of their decisions. As they get older I will have less and less control over how they choose to live their lives and what paths they take so I hope that the 3 Decision Questions help them make the right choices and decisions. As we all know they may be pressured by peers to try drugs or do other things that may cause harm to themselves or others. My hope is that they can stand up for themselves and choose wisely and well. While what they do when I am there is important, it is what they do when I am not there that is most important.

So what has all this got to do with business or making sales? How can these questions apply to our roles in business? I happen to think the 3 Decision Questions can serve us very well especially when all of us could be tempted to do things that are potentially life threatening, morally threatening or unhealthy. Just think of some of the recent business and financial collapses. Or the sub prime fiasco in the US. Maybe if those in charge of sales and the businesses concerned had applied the 3 Decision Questions we may not be in such a state today.

Now I know some people may be bristling as they think ‘what’s wrong with that? It’s a free market. They can sell to whomever they like. Buyer beware and all that’. Sure these people are entitled to their opinions, however I just happen to think that deliberately going after victims instead of prospects and making money at someone else’s expense is wrong, that’s all. It’s not life enhancing, moral or healthy for anyone.

As a sales person, leader and business owner I choose to apply the 3 Decision Questions to my business dealings and found them to be very helpful when choosing who to do business with and how to do business with people. My team and I also use the 3 Decision Questions to review our product offerings and work practices to see if they meet ethical and environmental standards.

Do we get it right all the time? Of course not. However, I have found that by using the 3 Decision Questions it makes things very clear about where we stand, what we stand for and how we like to operate.

The 3 Decision Questions support findings from around the world that more and more people want to work with others (suppliers, partners and customers) in a spirit of cooperation, consultation and respect not competition or deceit. They want to know that you are not potentially life threatening, morally threatening or unhealthy to deal with.

In a world that is now asking for each of us to stand up and be counted and declare our position on sustainability at all levels maybe the 3 Decision Questions could serve us well in helping us choose the right path for us and our businesses and in turn help us be more successful and profitable for all the right reasons.

But rather than me tell you what to think I’d rather you decide for yourself.

Selling can get quite confusing sometimes. Prospects or clients saying one thing and doing another. It’s hard enough that you put in all that effort and have your sale go nowhere.

It might help you to know, if you don’t already, when selling that there are mainly four different Buying States. They are classified as :

1. Opportunity
2. Problem
3. Static
4. Blinkered

Two Buying States show that a sale is possible.

Two Buying States show that a sale may be difficult or unlikely.

Opportunity: Your prospect recognises there is an opportunity to move forward or progress to a goal. This is a powerful motivator for the key decision maker clients who are independent, self sufficient and confident.

Problem: Your prospect recognises that there is a problem that must be rectified and addressed. This is a powerful motivator for the key decision maker clients who are concerned, responsible and accountable.

Static: Your prospect feels that business is going well and that significant change is unnecessary. They cannot see a reason to change. And even if you can see they need to change, if they can’t or don’t then you cannot make them change.

Blinkered: Your prospect feels that they are already doing everything to an optimum level and that almost nothing could improve upon their performance.
It should be noted that: Static and Blinkered buying states indicate a sale is unlikely if held by people of sufficient influence over the decision. If a new person enters the sales process with one of these buying states the sale is in jeopardy and a strategy needs to be developed to overcome that resistance (if possible).
Options to change Static and Blinkered buying states could include:

• A change in a situation
• Their viewpoint is swayed by another key influencer of the sale
• New information changes their viewpoint
• Other forces such as market changes, customer comments and competitors can force change

No relationship ever works effectively if it is forced. You will just have to bide your time in some cases. For instance I am waiting on the outcome of a large tender / proposal that has taken me 10 years to get to work on. The client has finally realised they need a contemporary selling culture. Did I prospect them every week? NO! But I kept them in my sights, made contact every now and then to see if they were ready and waited while I worked on other projects in the meantime.
I hope this helps you navigate your way on your sales journeys.
Happy selling.